Stories From Around the World
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Ometepe Island: The Nicaragua Stop I Immediately Fell in Love With
When a friend sends you a message asking if you want to backpack all eight countries of Central America by land in three weeks, there is really only one correct answer. YES. Nicaragua was country #53 in my dream of one day visiting every country in the world, and it was the third country of this trip after Panama and Costa Rica. Ometepe Island was our first stop in Nicaragua, and I swear I knew almost immediately that I loved this place. Panama had been mixed for me. Panama City didn’t impress me that much, while Bocas del Toro was cool but didn’t quite live up to what I had…
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Costa Rica to Nicaragua: Journey to My Country #53/197
I’m going to break the suspense right now and tell you that Nicaragua was probably my favorite country in Central America. And considering the absolute disaster that my time in Costa Rica had been, it is kind of funny how I somehow knew I was going to love Nicaragua almost as soon as I crossed the border. I had a hard time in Costa Rica and no, I’m not judging an entire country based on spending barely more than a day there. It simply was not for me, and by the time we left I was more than ready to get out. My friend and I were traveling through all…
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Solo Travel Europe: 15 Disasters From My First Year of Solo Travel
I found this post buried on one of my old travel blogs, originally written in January 2016 after my first year of solo travel, and there was absolutely no way I was leaving it there. 2015 was the year I discovered how much I loved traveling, but it was also the year travel decided to repeatedly kick me in the ass. I was still figuring everything out as I went, and every missed bus, broken bank card, terrible hostel and transport disaster felt like a full-blown crisis. Looking back now, some of these situations are hilarious. At the time, absolutely not. So here are 15 of the worst moments from…
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Backpacking Costa Rica: The Country I Knew Almost Immediately Wasn’t for Me
Costa Rica was the second country of my three-week Central America trip and officially country 52 out of 197. We had just left Bocas del Toro in Panama and were making our way north with basically no fixed plan other than eventually reaching Mexico. Costa Rica was supposed to be another stop along the way, and Puerto Viejo sounded like the obvious place to start because everyone kept talking about how cool it was. Unfortunately, Costa Rica and I did not exactly fall in love. I barely spent any time there, so I know it might sound unfair to say it became one of my least favorite countries in Central…
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Backpacking Panama: My Chaotic First Stop in Central America
If a friend suddenly texted you and asked, “Do you want to go to Central America and backpack all eight countries by land in three weeks?” would you say yes? Because I did, and that is basically how I ended up in Central America counting eight new countries in one trip. Panama was our first stop. We found a last-minute affordable direct flight from Madrid to Panama City, booked it, and suddenly this completely chaotic idea had become real. The goal was simple: visit all eight countries in Central America, travel mostly by land, keep everything as cheap as possible, and somehow make it to Mexico within three weeks because…
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Traveling Latvia: Turning 23 in Riga and the Birthday I Thought I’d Spend Alone
Technically, this was not my first birthday outside Portugal. I had already spent my 18th birthday in Andorra, but considering how badly that one went, I had apparently erased it from memory. By the time I was 22, I was backpacking around Europe and already knew I would spend my next birthday somewhere away from home. I just imagined it would be somewhere more familiar, maybe Italy or the UK. Latvia was definitely not on my birthday bingo card, and I never expected that traveling Latvia would end up giving me one of the most random and memorable birthdays I had ever had. Somehow, I ended up turning 23 in…
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My First Trip Abroad: Turning 18 in Andorra and Learning Who Not to Travel With
April 2010 — Pas de la Casa, Andorra 2010 was the year I finished secondary school, and like a lot of students in Portugal, our Easter break meant one thing: the long-awaited senior trip. At the time, rhythmic gymnastics was a huge part of my life. My team was basically my second family, and some of my closest friends were the girls I trained with every week. The problem was that the senior trip to Andorra fell exactly on my 18th birthday. At first, I did not want to go because turning 18 felt important, and I wanted to spend that day with the people I was actually closest to,…
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Visiting Monaco With No Plan: How One Morning Became Country 48
Europe and I have a complicated relationship. I want to visit every country in the world, which unfortunately means I cannot just spend the rest of my life traveling around Asia where everything is cheaper and I am generally much happier. So every once in a while, I come home, look at the map of Europe and think, Fine. Which countries can I somehow combine without financially destroying myself? That was basically how Monaco happened. I was back in Portugal for a bit and decided it was time to count a few new European countries. But because Europe is expensive, there was absolutely no chance I was flying somewhere just…
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How a Random 4-Day Stop in Kochi Became an Entire Chapter of My Life
I was supposed to spend four days in Kochi. That was it. It was my first stop in India, somewhere I had picked mainly because I was terrified of India and Kerala looked like the least terrifying place to start. Three months later, I was still there. By then I wasn’t sightseeing anymore. I had my own room, my favorite cafés, people I saw every day, a bar where I knew everyone, a street dog waiting outside the hostel every night, and somehow even a group of people rescuing street dogs had become part of my life. Visiting Kochi was supposed to be the beginning of a much bigger trip…
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My Experience Backpacking Austria Solo: What I Really Thought of Vienna
Austria was one of the countries I visited during my first big solo backpacking trip around Europe, when I spent 80 days traveling entirely overland. I arrived in Vienna from Bratislava, and that probably couldn’t have been a worse combination for Vienna because I had just fallen completely in love with Slovakia’s much smaller capital. Bratislava had felt easy. It was small, colorful, quiet and the kind of place where I could just wander around without thinking too much about where I was going. Vienna felt like the complete opposite. It was huge, busy and much more overwhelming than I expected, and my first few hours there were mostly spent…
